Progressive Mesh Densification

Method for Numerical Solution

Wei Pu
School of Aeronautics and Astronautics,
Sichuan University,
Chengdu 610065, China
Jiaxu Wang1
School of Aeronautics and Astronautics,
Sichuan University,
Chengdu 610065, China;
State Key Laboratory of
Mechanical Transmission,
Chongqing University,
Chongqing 40044, China
e-mail: cquwjx@foxmail.com
Dong Zhu
School of Aeronautics and Astronautics,
Sichuan University,
Chengdu 610065, China
of Mixed Elastohydrodynamic
Lubrication
Numerical solution of mixed elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) is of great impor-
tance for the study of lubrication formation and breakdown, as well as surface failures of
mechanical components. However, converged and accurate numerical solutions become
more difficult, and solution process with a fixed single discretization mesh for the solution
domain appears to be quite slow, especially when the lubricant films and surface contacts
coexist with real-machined roughness involved. Also, the effect of computational mesh
density is found to be more significant if the average film thickness is small. In the present
study, a set of sample cases with and without machined surface roughness are analyzed
through the progressive mesh densification (PMD) method, and the obtained results are
compared with those from the direct iteration method with a single fixed mesh. Besides,
more numerical analyses with and without surface roughness in a wide range of operat-
ing conditions are conducted to investigate the influence of different compound modes in
order to optimize the PMD procedure. In addition, different initial conditions are used to
study the effect of initial value on the behaviors of this transient solution. It is observed
that, no matter with or without surface roughness considered, the PMD method is stable
for transient mixed EHL problems and capable of significantly accelerating the EHL
solution process while ensuring numerical accuracy. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4031495]

Keywords: elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL), mixed EHL, mixed lubrication,

numerical solution, PMD method, mesh density

1 Introduction mesh is constantly changed with mesh density increasing and

decreasing alternately. Through the repeated transitions between
Power and motion are transmitted through surface contacts in
coarse and fine meshes in either a V- or W-cycle, the total error is
mechanical components, most of which are lubricated. Counter-
fast minimized. Venner [9], Kim and Sadeghi [10], Ai [11], Zhu
formal contacts widely exist in many machine elements, such as
and Ai [12], and many other researchers followed and improved
various types of gears, rolling element bearings, cam–follower
this approach. As a result, solution convergence has been consid-
systems, and others. Thus, EHL is of great importance, especially,
erably accelerated and numerical accuracy was improved. More
thin-film and mixed EHL are the major modes of lubrication in
detailed descriptions for the MG method can be found in Refs.
which most counterformal contact components operate. They also
[8,9] and a book by Venner and Lubrecht [13].
represent critical transition toward lubrication breakdown and sur-
In the last 20 years, the great advancement of computer technol-
face failures. Therefore, a good understanding of thin-film
ogies has fueled significant development in the mixed EHL theory
and mixed EHL characteristics is vital to component design opti-
and practice. Basically, the EHL equation system exhibits very
mization, durability/reliability improvement, and power loss
strong nonlinear behaviors, resulted mainly from the surface elas-
minimization.
tic deformation and much increased viscosity due to pressure.
Early studies for point contact EHL with smooth surfaces under
Therefore, numerical solution under practical conditions has long
the full-film lubrication condition include those by Ranger et al.
been a great challenge to researchers, and convergence difficulty
[1], Hamrock and Dowson [2–4], Evans and Snidle [5,6], Zhu and
often occurs especially when the load is heavy and/or the velocity
Wen [7], Lubrecht [8], Venner [9], Kim and Sadeghi [10], Ai
is low resulting in a very thin or zero lubricant film. Great efforts
[11], and others. Due to limited computational ability in the 1950s
have been made in order to solve this convergence problem, and
through early 1980s, relatively coarse discretization meshes were
one of the developed numerical algorithms is the so-called
employed for solving the Reynolds equation. In each case, at that
“semisystem approach” presented by Ai [11] and improved by
time, a single mesh for the solution domain was used and always
Zhu and Hu [14], Hu and Zhu [15], and others. With this
kept unchanged throughout the entire solution process (see Refs.
approach, numerical simulation of the entire transition of lubrica-
[1–7]). Lubrecht [8] was the first one who introduced the multi-
tion status from the full-film and mixed EHL down to dry contact,
grid (MG) method into EHL solution procedure and significantly
using a unified model with machined roughness, has become pos-
increased the mesh density. The basic idea of the MG method is
sible, and numerical convergence can be ensured even for thin-
that numerical errors whose wavelengths are of the order of the
film and zero-film cases under severe operating conditions.
mesh spacing are fast to reduce and hence can vanish quickly,
During the work reported in Refs. [14,15] and others, it was
implying that high-frequency errors can be reduced quickly on a
found through numerical trials that EHL solution convergence is
finer mesh while low-frequency errors can be removed efficiently
much easier to achieve under severe conditions by turning off the
on a coarser mesh. Thus, in an MG procedure, the computational
MG function and employing the direct iteration method with a
1
fixed single mesh. Repeatedly changing the mesh density up and
Corresponding author.
Contributed by the Tribology Division of ASME for publication in the JOURNAL
down in the MG procedure may not help with the solution conver-
OF TRIBOLOGY. Manuscript received February 8, 2015; final manuscript received gence when the EHL film is very thin. The reason was not well
August 13, 2015; published online October 15, 2015. Assoc. Editor: Zhong Min Jin. understood at that time. Morales-Espejel et al. [16] were the first

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 to point out that the effect of mesh density on the EHL solution
becomes much more significant when the EHL film is very thin.
This observation was soon confirmed by Zhu [17], Venner [18],
and Liu et al. [19]. Based on this, Zhu [20] conducted a systematic
study on the mesh density effect in a wide range of operating con-
ditions. It has been revealed that the mesh density effect may be
insignificant when the EHL film is thick, but becomes significant
if the film thickness falls down to the order of a couple of tens of
nanometers or less, where the EHL solution depends considerably
on the density of computational mesh used. Using different
meshes, in other words, would aim at (and eventually yield) dif-
ferent solutions. It has also been pointed out in Ref. [20] that, with
the second-order backward differential scheme for the Couette
flow term, commonly used by many researchers, the denser the
mesh, the greater the central film thickness is obtained. In other
words, if HK is defined as the converged dimensionless central
film thickness on mesh density level K, one can always find
HI < HII < HIII <       < HK < HKþ1…. However, when the mesh
density is continuously increasing, the film thickness increase is in
fact limited. Actually, it quickly approaches an asymptotic limit,
H1, which is defined as the dimensionless film thickness theoreti-
cally from an infinitely dense mesh. Note that H1 can be readily
estimated by a simple formula given in Ref. [20].
The above-mentioned studies suggest that the MG method may
work well when the EHL film is thick, but it may not be desirable
in case of thin-film and mixed EHL. The reason is obvious: Due
to the significant effect of mesh density on the EHL solution, each
time when the mesh changes, say from level K to level K þ 1, the
solution process changes its target from HK to HKþ1 (which is dif-
ferent from HK), hence repeatedly changing the mesh in a W- or
V-cycle would make the solution process aiming at different tar-
gets that oscillate up and down repeatedly. This would possibly
jeopardize the process of achieving the converged ultimate solu-
tion especially when the EHL film is very thin. There are a few
other reasons for the MG method not being preferred for the thin-
film and mixed EHL, especially if high-frequency machined
roughness is involved. Detailed discussions can be found in
Ref. [20].
Although solution convergence has been well ensured, the com-
putational efficiency is still a major concern during an EHL solu-
tion process. In practice, a high-density mesh is preferred for thin-
film and mixed EHL in order to achieve satisfactory numerical
accuracy, especially when high-frequency machined roughness is
involved. However, it is well known that, for any computational
analysis based on numerical discretization, the higher the mesh
density, the smaller the discretization error but the longer the
computing time. Generally, when mesh density is doubled in both
the x- and y-directions, the computational time required for each
iteration is increased approximately by a factor of four. In the
meantime, the change of converged EHL film thickness solution
between two subsequent meshes reduces roughly by the same fac-
tor of four, if a second-order discretization scheme is used and the
mesh densification continues. Based on the necessary compromise
between the numerical accuracy and the computational efficiency,
the discretization mesh can be optimized, and the range of reason-
able mesh density has been suggested in Ref. [20].
When a reasonably dense fixed single mesh is employed for
ensuring the solution convergence and numerical accuracy, errors
whose wavelengths are comparable to the mesh spacing can be
reduced quickly, but low-frequency errors with considerably
larger wavelengths may take a very long time to vanish. In order
to accelerate the solution process, a PMD method was initially
proposed by Zhu [20]. With this approach, solution process is
started on a low level of mesh density, so that numerical errors
with relatively long wavelengths can be removed and the first
approximation of the solution can be obtained very quickly. As
soon as the solution becomes reasonably convergent with a rela-
tively loose convergent criterion, the computation is automatically
switched to the next level for a higher (typically doubled) mesh
density. This procedure is repeated until the ultimate solution on
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the proposed mesh level of highest density is obtained with a
tightened convergence criterion. In this way, the errors with larger
wavelengths are removed first, and then those with intermediate
and small wavelengths are canceled step by step as the mesh con-
tinues to be progressively densified. Since the computation is very
fast on the lower levels of mesh density, the total time required
for the ultimate solution can be greatly shortened, as demonstrated
by the preliminary results from a few sample cases of smooth sur-
face EHL in circular contacts, presented in Ref. [20].
In the present study, the PMD method is further explored based
on the preliminary study in Ref. [20] by analyzing a large number
of mixed EHL cases with and without real-machined roughness
involved. The obtained results are compared with those from the
direct iteration method with a single fixed computational mesh.
Besides, the effect of different compound modes on the EHL solu-
tion process is systematically investigated in a wide range of oper-
ating conditions in order to optimize the PMD procedure. In
addition, different initial conditions are used to study the effect of
initial value on the transient solution for the purpose of examining
the stability of this solution method. It is expected that, no matter
with or without surface roughness, the PMD method is stable for
this transient problem and capable of significantly accelerating the
mixed EHL solution process.
2 Basic Equations
The basic formulation for the deterministic mixed EHL simula-
tion model and its improvements has been presented in a good
number of previous publications, such as Refs. [14,15,19,20]. Its
details will not be repeated here but a brief summary is given in
the following part of Sec. 2 for clarity and completeness. The
present study focuses on the mixed EHL problems in counterfor-
mal contacts, for which the Hertzian contact zone can be either an
infinitely long narrow band (line contact) or an ellipse (elliptical
contact). Generally, two arbitrary rough surfaces are running
through the EHL conjunction at any rolling and relative sliding
velocities. The two rough surfaces can be directly digitized and
then used as a part of the input data. The pressure (including both
the “hydrodynamic” pressure and “contact” pressure) within the
entire domain is governed by the Reynolds equation expressed as
follows:
! !
@ qh3 @p @ qh3 @p u1 þ u2 @ ðqhÞ @ ðqhÞ
þ ¼ þ (1)
@x 12g @x @y 12g @y 2 @x @t
Here, the lubricant can be either Newtonian or non-Newtonian (If
non-Newtonian, g should be the effective viscosity with respect to
a certain shear behavior of the lubricant used. Readers may refer
to Refs. [14,15] for more information). All the parameters are
defined in the Nomenclature. The x-coordinate is chosen to coin-
cide with the rolling direction. A boundary condition of pressure
p ¼ 0 at the edges of the solution domain, as well as a normal cav-
itation condition, must be satisfied when solving this equation.
For a rough surface point contact EHL problem, the local lubri-
cant film thickness/gap is time-dependent and can be computed by
x2 y2
h ¼ h0 ðtÞ þ þ þ d1 ð x; y; tÞ þ d2 ð x; y; tÞ þ V ð x; y; tÞ (2)
2Rx 2Ry
Note that the first term on the right-hand side of Eq. (2) represents
the normal approach between the two bodies, and the second and
third terms are for the original macrocontact geometry. V(x, y, t) is
the surface elastic deformation, and d1(x, y, t) and d2(x, y, t) are
the original roughness profiles for surfaces No. 1 and No. 2,
respectively. Since both surfaces are moving along the
x-direction, d1 and d2, are time-dependent, and can be given by
d1 ðx; y; tÞ ¼ s1 ðx  u1 t; yÞ
d2 ðx; y; tÞ ¼ s2 ðx  u2 t; yÞ
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 where s1(x, y) and s2(x, y) are surface profiles, typically in the
form of measured discretized roughness height data matrix.
The surface elastic deformation, V(x, y, t), can be calculated by
the Boussinesq integral written as
ðð
2 pðn; 1Þ
V ð x; y; tÞ ¼ 0 qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi dnd1 (3)
pE ð x  n Þ 2
þ y  1 2
X ð Þ
The lubricant viscosity is assumed to be dependent on pressure,
and one of the commonly used viscosity equations is the exponen-
tial law given below
g ¼ g0 eaP (4)
Other viscosity laws can also be used here to readily replace
Eq. (4) when necessary. Detailed discussion on the effect of dif-
ferent viscosity models is beyond the scope of the present study.
The density of lubricant is also a function of pressure, commonly
calculated by
! and high frequencies. During this process, the first approximation
0:6  109 p
q ¼ qo 1 þ (5)
1 þ 1:7  109 p
The applied load is balanced by the integral of the pressure
over the entire solution domain, X, i.e.,
ðð
wðtÞ ¼ pðx; y; tÞdxdy (6)
X PMD procedure, a low-level mesh, usually K ¼ II or III, is
The numerical solution techniques based on the semisystem
approach have been described previously in Refs.
[11,14,15,19,20] and some other publications. The unified
lubrication-contact approach employs the same equation system
and numerical algorithms consistently in both the hydrodynamic
and contact regions. In order to accelerate the surface deformation
calculation, which is a major part of the total computation, the dis-
crete convolution and fast Fourier transform method developed by
Liu et al. [21] have been incorporated into the EHL model men-
tioned above by Wang et al. [22] and others, and the computation
using this set of numerical procedure has been proven to be very
fast. When solving mixed EHL problems with machined rough-
ness, the handling of discretization meshes and the resulting
numerical accuracy become crucial. The appropriate algorithm
has been described in detail in a recent paper by Zhu et al. [23].
Fig. 1 Different mesh density levels
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3 PMD Method
The theoretical basis of the PMD method is similar to that of
the MG procedure, i.e., errors whose wavelengths are of the order
of the mesh size can be quickly reduced by using an iterative
relaxation procedure, while other error components with the
wavelengths far away from the mesh spacing may take a much
longer time to vanish. In fact, if the wavelength of the error is not
comparable to the mesh size, it may often hardly reduce and, con-
sequently, after a few iterations convergence slows down and the
asymptotic convergence rate may become very small (see Refs.
[9,13]). That is why different mesh levels may be needed in order
to accelerate the entire solution process. However, the major dif-
ference between the PMD and the MG is that with the MG the
mesh density is going up and down repeatedly in a V- or W-cycle,
while in the PMD procedure the computation is started from a
low-density mesh, then the mesh is progressively densified step
by step until the proposed highest mesh density is reached. When
the unidirectional mesh densification process continues, the low-
frequency errors are canceled first, then those of the intermediate
of the solution is achieved very quickly then the solution gradu-
ally approaches its converged ultimate target unidirectionally.
Since the majority of iterations are on the low-level meshes, the
entire solution process can be very fast.
Figure 1 shows an example for different levels of mesh density,
in which level I mesh consists of 32  32 grids for the entire
domain, level II is 64  64, level III 128  128, and so on. If K is
defined as the current mesh level number, in the beginning of a
employed in order to quickly cancel low-frequency errors and get
good approximations of the pressure and film thickness distribu-
tions. Due to the low mesh density, the computation is very fast.
As soon as a relatively loose convergence criterion is met, such as
4
ep ¼ RjPnew old new
i;j  Pi;j j=RPi;j < 10 , the computation is automati-
cally switched to the next higher level of mesh to focus on the
reduction of errors of higher frequencies, pursuing a more accu-
rate solution. This procedure is repeated until the proposed ulti-
mate mesh density is reached. On the final mesh level of the
highest density, the convergence criteria may be tightened, such
as ep < 106 , to ensure better solution accuracy.
Each time when the mesh is changed from a low level to a
higher level, the nodal pressures and film thickness values are
transferred through interpolation. In the present study, the second-
order Lagrangian (parabolic) interpolation is used and found to be
satisfactory.
APRIL 2016, Vol. 138 / 021502-3
 Table 1 Different mesh levels used DX ¼ DY ¼ 0.005859, which is sufficiently small. Generally, a
small time step length is preferred for transient mixed EHL prob-
Mesh level, K Mesh density, DM Mesh size, DX ¼ DY lems in order to obtain stabilized numerical solutions. However, a
small step length may cause a considerably increased total com-
I (32  32) 10.667 0.09375 puting time. According to Lubrecht and Venner [24] and Mourier
II (64  64) 21.333 0.046875
III (128  128) 42.667 0.0234375
et al. [25], a dimensionless time step length equal to or smaller
IV (256  256) 85.333 0.01171875 than the dimensionless mesh size in the x-direction is appropriate,
V (512  512) 170.67 0.005859375 which is in agreement with Zhu and Hu’s observation presented in
Ref. [26]. In the present study, therefore, the time step length is
chosen to be 0.0044, slightly smaller than the mesh size at the
highest level. The pressure convergence criterion is set to be
ep < 106 for smooth surface solutions and ep < 104 if machined
roughness is involved. The mesh density, defined as DM ¼ 1/
DX ¼ 1/DY, at each level can be found in Table 1.
It is well known that converged and accurate numerical solu-
tions for thin-film and mixed EHL become more difficult than
those in thick-film cases, and the solution process with a fixed sin-
gle mesh appears to be quite slow. Since the problem for mixed
EHL is usually transient due to moving surface irregularities, it
may take many time steps to reach a globally stabilized solution.
In this section, some sample cases are numerically analyzed under
moderate and low-speed conditions with and without machined
surface roughness considered. When machined roughness is
involved, two surfaces from the same grinding process are in con-
tact against each other, and a sample ground rough surface topog-
Fig. 2 A sample three-dimensional ground surface profile raphy can be found in Fig. 2. Four typical cases with and without
surface roughness at the rolling speed of U ¼ 1 m/s and
4 Comparison Between PMD and That With Single U ¼ 0.01 m/s are shown in Figs. 3 and 4, demonstrating the com-
parison between the PMD method and that with a single fixed
Fixed Mesh computational mesh of K ¼ V. In this set of cases, the initial value
Sample cases in a circular contact (a ¼ b) are analyzed in the of pressure distribution is from the Hertzian dry contact, the
present study with a solution domain set to be 1:9  X  1:1 applied load is fixed at 1000 N, and the material properties
and 1:5  Y  1:5. The corresponding dimensionless mesh are go ¼ 0.09 Pa  s and E0 ¼ 230.77 GPa. The pressure–viscosity
spacing at the highest level, K ¼ V (512  512 grids), is coefficient is 12.5 GPa1. The geometric parameters are

Fig. 3 Comparison of smooth surface solutions between PMD method and that with a fixed
mesh of K 5 V: (a) rolling speed of U 5 1 m/s and (b) rolling speed of U 5 0.01 m/s

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 Fig. 4 Comparison of rough surface solutions between PMD method and that with a fixed
mesh of K 5 V: (a) rolling speed of U 5 1 m/s and (b) rolling speed of U 5 0.01 m/s
Rx ¼ Ry ¼ 20 mm, so that the Hertzian contact radius is
a ¼ b ¼ 0.5066 mm and the maximum Hertzian pressure
Ph ¼ 1.86 GPa. For the rough surface cases, the composite rms
roughness of the two transversely oriented ground surfaces is set
to be r ¼ 0.50 lm.
Note that in Fig. 4, H is the dimensionless average film thick-
ness (or gap) calculated in the central part of Hertzian contact (see
Refs. [14,15] for the definition of average film thickness).
In the cases shown in Fig. 3, both the surfaces are smooth. In
Fig. 3(a), the rolling speed is U ¼ 1 m/s and in Fig. 3(b)
U ¼ 0.01 m/s. This two figures show the variation of dimension-
less central film thickness versus the number of iteration, and
direct comparison between PMD method and that with a fixed
mesh of K ¼ V is made under otherwise the same conditions. With
the PMD method, the analysis is started at K ¼ II and then
switched to K ¼ III, K ¼ IV, and eventually to K ¼ V. Obtained
ultimate central film thicknesses are 338.78 nm and 10.98 nm
for U ¼ 1 m/s and U ¼ 0.01 m/s, respectively, with a high
convergence accuracy of ep < 106 and eW ¼ jW new  W old j
=W new < 106 . When the single fixed mesh of K ¼ V is used, i.e.,
computation stays on the high-density mesh level of K ¼ V all the
time from the beginning, the central processing unit (CPU) time
required to get comparable solutions (335.49 for U ¼ 1 m/s and
11.15 nm for U ¼ 0.01 m/s) will be about 26 and 14.9 times of that
by the PMD, respectively, if the numerical algorithms are other-
wise exactly the same. It is observed that, when the direct iterative
method with a single fixed dense mesh is employed, it takes many
iterations (and a very long time) to get the solution roughly shaped
due to very slow reduction of the low-frequency errors. With the
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PMD, on the other hand, it takes only 150 iterations or so for
U ¼ 1 m/s and about 175 iterations for U ¼ 0.01 m/s on the low-
level meshes to get good approximations of the solution. On the
highest mesh level of K ¼ V, only a small number of iterations,
say less than 50, are needed by the PMD. Therefore, the total
computing time is greatly reduced.
For the cases shown in Fig. 4, both the surfaces are rough with
machined topography. In these cases, the PMD method is kept the
same as those given above for the cases shown in Fig. 3. It should
be noted that, in the present study, for all the transient cases, the
number of iteration in each figure represents total number of time
step. Obtained ultimate average film thickness are 146.9 nm and
63.4 nm, and contact load ratio, Wc, are 57.12% and 84.98%, for
U ¼ 1 and 0.01 m/s, respectively, with a reasonably good conver-
gence accuracy of ep < 104 and eW < 104. When the computa-
tion stays on the mesh level K ¼ V all the time from the
beginning, the CPU time required to get comparable solutions
(146 nm for U ¼ 1 m/s and 63.4 nm for U ¼ 0.01 m/s) will be about
1.87 and 2.24 times of that by the PMD approach, respectively.
Therefore, the PMD method appears to be able to significantly
improve the computational efficiency.
It is important to note that, regardless of the rolling speed and
the roughness, after a sufficient number of time steps (such as
about 1400 time steps in Fig. 4(b), equivalent to a dimensionless
time of 6.16), the obtained solutions from the PMD and the direct
iteration with a fixed single mesh will be about the same and the
discrepancy will be negligible. This means that the final mixed
EHL solution is in principle independent of the intermediate mesh
arrangements, and the solution method is stable and reliable.
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 Table 2 Different compound modes 5 Different Compound Modes for PMD Procedure
Scheme Compound mode description In the above study with the PMD method, the analyses are
started from mesh level K ¼ II, and then progressively switched to
Scheme 1 From level II to level III and then jump to level V K ¼ III, IV, and eventually to K ¼ V. This compound mode may
Scheme 2 From level II jump to level IV and then to level V not be the best, if some errors of certain intermediate wavelengths
Scheme 3 From level II directly jump to level V are insignificant thus iterations on one mesh level or even two
Scheme 4 From level II to III and IV then to level V may be skipped in order to further increase the speed of solution
process. Since the frequency spectrum of numerical errors is
unknown, in this section we will optimize the PMD procedure by
conducting a good number of trials employing different com-
pound modes with and without surface roughness under different
operating conditions. Details of the compound modes used are
Table 3 Results of central film thickness with smooth surfaces listed in Table 2.
Four different entraining velocities are selected for the numeri-
Converged central film thickness (nm)
cal trials: 10 m/s, 1 m/s, 0.1 m/s, and 0.01 m/s, resulting in EHL
Case no. U (m/s) HII HIII HIV HV film thickness variation in a wide range so that the present investi-
gation is representative. For the trials with smooth surfaces, the
1 10 1624.83 1657.81 1666.84 1669.26 range of central film thickness is from 1669.26 nm down to
2 1 287.84 332.06 343.89 347.28 11.15 nm, if all the other input parameters remain the same as
3 0.1 0 46.54 62.03 66.30 those given above. Obtained main results are summarized in Table
4 0.01 0 0 5.92 11.15 3. For those with the rough surfaces, the obtained numerical solu-
tions correspond to a range of average film thickness from

Fig. 5 Comparison of results from different schemes with smooth surfaces: (a) rolling speed of U 5 1 m/s and (b) rolling speed of
U 5 0.01 m/s

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 Fig. 5 Continued

1136.8 nm down to 63.4 nm, and the contact load ratio varies from
zero to 84.98%, which represents a transition of lubrication status
from the full-film and mixed EHL down to boundary lubrication
(or nearly dry contact).
The more detailed results at U ¼ 1 m/s and U ¼ 0.01 m/s are
illustrated in Fig. 5 that shows the iteration process for different
schemes with smooth surfaces. For each scheme, the final film
thickness contour on each mesh level is given, and the variation of
dimensionless central film thickness versus the number of itera-
tion is plotted. Note that, no matter which compound mode is
used, the higher the mesh density, the greater the converged film
thickness, i.e., HII < HIII < HIV < HV. Also, the mesh density
effect is certainly more significant in the thin-film case at
U ¼ 0.01 m/s than that in the thick-film case at U ¼ 1 m/s, as
shown in Fig. 5. This is in good agreement with the observations
reported in Refs. [19,20].
The comparison of required computing time with different
schemes is given in Fig. 6. Note that in the figure Ti (i ¼ 1, 2, 3, 4)
is defined as the computing time required by scheme i, while Td is
that by the direct iteration method with the fixed mesh of K ¼ V.
Fig. 6 Comparison of computational speeds with different It is important to note that the total computing time may not have
schemes any direct relation with the total number of iterations. For

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 Fig. 7 Comparison of different schemes with rough surfaces: (a) solution details at U 5 1 m/s, (b) summary for solutions at
U 5 1 m/s, (c) solution details at U 5 0.01 m/s, and (d) summary for solutions at U 5 0.01 m/s

example, if most iterations are conducted on the coarse meshes,
the total computing time can be short even though the total num-
ber of iterations is larger. In Fig. 6, it is observed that, when the
rolling speed is equal to or greater than U ¼ 0.1 m/s, the computa-
tional speeds by schemes 2 and 4 are remarkably higher than those
by schemes 1 and 3. When the rolling speed is reduced down to
0.01 m/s or lower, the computational speed by scheme 4 becomes
slightly lower than that by scheme 1 or scheme 3. No matter how
high the entrainment speed is, generally, schemes 2 and 4 appear
to have similar performance but scheme 4 may be slightly better
most of the time. Scheme 3 for jumping from K ¼ II directly to
K ¼ V is not preferred for the cases with smooth surfaces. Based

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 Fig. 7
on the comparison above, scheme 4 is chosen to be the optimized
one for all the cases analyzed with smooth surfaces, unless other-
wise noted.
Figure 7 shows the solution processes for the rough surface
cases with different schemes at U ¼ 1 m/s and U ¼ 0.01 m/s,
respectively. It is observed from Fig. 7(a) that, when rolling speed
is U ¼ 1 m/s, the higher the mesh density, the lower the converged
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Continued
average film thickness, i.e., HII > HIII > HIV > HV. When rolling
speed is reduced down to 0.01 m/s, the converged average film
thickness at each mesh level varies irregularly probably due to
very weak hydrodynamic action, as shown in Fig. 7(c). Besides, it
is also observed that the higher the mesh density, the lower the
local fluctuations of average film thickness. Note that it can be
seen from Figs. 7(b) and 7(d) that, no matter which compound
APRIL 2016, Vol. 138 / 021502-9

Fig. 8 Comparison of computational speeds with different
schemes for cases with roughness
mode is taken, after a sufficient number of iterations all the solu-
tions at the same speed become identical and globally stabilized
on mesh level 5, but small fluctuations still exist due to moving
surface irregularities. This indicates that the PMD method is sta-
ble regardless of the compound mode used. In addition, it appears
that with the rough surfaces scheme 3 may have a slightly better
performance than the others at U ¼ 1 m/s and 0.01 m/s, but the dif-
ferences among different compound modes are not large.
The comparison of computational speeds with different
schemes for the cases with the rough surfaces is given in Fig. 8. It
is found that, when the rolling speed is high, e.g., 10 m/s, the com-
putational speed with scheme 4 is the highest. If the speed is low
or moderate, the PMD approach with scheme 1 and scheme 3
appears to be slightly better. Therefore, scheme 3 can be used
except at high speeds.
Fig. 9 Effect of initial value on the transient mixed EHL solution
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6 Effect of Different Initial Values
Effect of different initial conditions has also been investigated
in the present study in order to examine the stability and reliability
of the solution approach with the PMD. In this section, the rolling
speed is U ¼ 1 m/s, and the maximum Hertzian pressure
Ph ¼ 1.86 GPa. The composite rms roughness is r ¼ 0.5 lm.
Obtained results for the additional rough surface EHL cases ana-
lyzed are summarized in Fig. 9, in which the red lines are the
results based on the initial value of pressure distribution from the
corresponding smooth surface solution under the same operating
conditions, and the blue lines are those from the Hertzian dry con-
tact solution. It appears that the effect of initial value on the tran-
sient mixed EHL solution becomes insignificant, and both the red
and blue lines get very close to each other after a sufficient num-
ber of time steps (e.g., 340–360 steps in this case). This indicates
that the final solutions are independent of the mesh arrangement
schemes used, and the numerical approach with each of the PMD
schemes is stable and reliable for this transient mixed EHL prob-
lem. It can also be seen that the initial value from the correspond-
ing smooth surface solution appears to provide a more stable
performance in the solution process than the one from the Hertz-
ian dry contact theory.
7 Conclusions
A PMD method for solving the mixed EHL problems was ini-
tially presented with a few preliminary sample solutions by Zhu
[20]. It has now been further explored in the present study based
on the simulation results obtained from a good number of cases
with and without machined surface roughness in a wide range of
operating conditions. The conclusions drawn from the present
study include:
(1) The PMD solution procedure based on the semisystem
approach originally presented by Ai [11] and improved by
Zhu and Hu [14,15,20] and others is capable of solving the
mixed EHL problems effectively, and the solution conver-
gence is ensured even with real-machined surface
Transactions of the ASME
 roughness under severe operating conditions. Both the
hydrodynamic lubrication and the contact in mixed EHL
can be handled with a unified model and numerical
approach.
(2) It has been demonstrated that with the PMD procedure, the
solution process can be greatly accelerated in a wide range
of operating conditions, in comparison with the solution
process with a single fixed discretization mesh, no matter
with or without surface roughness involved.
(3) Different solution processes with and without the PMD
yield the same results after a sufficiently large number of
time steps. Also, different initial values and/or different
compound modes in the PMD procedure lead to the same
final solution at the selected highest mesh level. This indi-
cates that the numerical approaches are stable and reliable
for transient mixed EHL problems.
(4) The effect of different compound modes on the EHL solu-
tion process is systematically investigated in a wide range
of operating conditions in order to optimize the PMD pro-
cedure. It has been found that, for smooth surface cases,
scheme 4 may generally be the best choice except that at
very low speeds scheme 1 may be slightly better. For rough
surface cases, however, it is observed that, when the rolling
speed is high, scheme 4 may offer the highest efficiency,
but if the speed is low or moderate, scheme 3 appears to be
generally more appropriate.
Acknowledgment
This study was partially supported by the National Science Foun-
dation of China (NSFC) Project Nos. 51435001 and 51375506. Wei
Pu would also like to acknowledge the Research Foundation from
the Sichuan University (No. SCUMIAOZI2014-1-1).
Nomenclature
a ¼ semi-axis of the Hertzian contact ellipse in the x-
direction
b ¼ semi-axis of the Hertzian contact ellipse in the y-
direction
E0 ¼ effective Young’s modulus
h ¼ local film thickness (or gap)
H ¼ h/a, dimensionless film thickness
ha ¼ average film thicknesses evaluated in the central part of
the Hertzian contact zone
hc, hm ¼ central and minimum film thicknesses, respectively
HK ¼ converged dimensionless central film thickness on
mesh level K
H1 ¼ dimensionless film thickness theoretically from an
infinitely dense mesh
K ¼ mesh level number
p ¼ pressure, P ¼ p/Ph, dimensionless pressure
Ph ¼ nominal maximum Hertzian contact pressure
Rx ¼ effective radius of curvature in the x-direction
Ry ¼ effective radius of curvature in the y-direction
t ¼ time, T ¼ tU/a, dimensionless time
Td ¼ computation time with the single fixed computational
mesh
Ti ¼ computing time required by scheme i (i ¼ 1, 2, 3, 4)
U ¼ (u1 þ u2)/2, rolling velocity in the x-direction
u1, u2 ¼ velocities of surface 1 and surface 2 in the x-direction,
respectively
V ¼ surface elastic deformation
W ¼ applied load
Wc ¼ contact load ratio, defined as the load supported by
asperity contacts divided by the total load
x, y ¼ coordinates
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X, Y ¼ dimensionless coordinates, X ¼ x/a, Y ¼ y/b
a¼ pressure–viscosity exponent
DT ¼ dimensionless time step length, DT ¼ UDt/a
DX, DY ¼ dimensionless mesh sizes, DX ¼ Dx/a, DY ¼ Dy/b
g, go ¼ viscosity, and viscosity under ambient condition
q, qo ¼ density of lubricant, and density under ambient
condition
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